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How similar are design thinkers to da Vinci? During a Masterclass on Writing a Screenplay, the tutor, Steve Attridge, recommended that screenwriters adopt the 7 elements of creativity practised by Leonardo da Vinci. These elements were originally defined by psychologist Michael Gelb in his book How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci as:

Curiosità – An insatiable quest for knowledge and continuous improvement

Dimostrazione – A commitment to test knowledge through experience, persistence, and willingness to learn from mistakes

Sfumato – An openness to the unknown, embracing and managing ambiguity, paradox, and uncertainty

Sensazione – The sharpening and continual refinement of the senses, especially sight, as the means to enliven experience

What struck me about these elements is how similar they are to the 'ideal' attributes of design thinkers proposed by various design schools (e.g., Stanford d.school), and professional organisations (e.g., IDEO, LUMA Institute, UK Design Council) and discussions on LinkedIn Groups.

So, how similar are design thinkers to da Vinci?

To make comparison easier, I've taken liberties with Anglicizing and Adjectiving the Italian descriptions.

Curiosità – curious

Dimostrazione – experimental (learning and progressing by persistently making and testing)

Sfumato – open (open-minded, non-judgemental)

Arte/Scienza – integrated (combining knowledge from different fields)

Connessione – holistic (looking at the whole as a functioning, interconnected system)

Sensazione – sensorial (applying and refining all the senses)

Corporalità – robust (healthy and strong in mind and body)

Then I scanned various lists of design thinking characteristics, traits, behaviours and attributes, and listed them here, alphabetically but not exhaustively:

Action-oriented

Adventurous

Clear-communicator

Collaborative

Curious

Empathetic

Flexible

Humble

Imaginative

Iterative

Meticulous

Optimistic

Passionate

Process-oriented

Systems-thinking

Tangible

And then I mapped them (of course!) onto the 7 da Vincian elements. For most attributes, the mapping was straightforward: Iterative to Experimental, System-thinking to Holistic, and so on. If you're wondering about Optimistic, so was I, until I read Tim Brown's explanation which equates optimistic to 'determined' in that no matter the constraints of the problem, design thinkers persevere until they find at least one potential solution that's better than the existing alternatives. For me, that fits with Experimental element--especially the 'persistence' in conduction multiple experiments.

There were 5 attributes that were more difficult to map onto the elements (shown in the grey box in the diagram). Empathetic could possibly be mapped to Open (a willingness to explore the unknown requires designers to step outside their personal experience) or even Holistic (if we include a deep understanding of human needs and experiences as central to system-thinking). Likewise, Humble could mapped to Curious, since the "quest for continuous improvement" indicates that there is room to improve, as does Experimental's "willingness to learn through mistakes".

As for Imaginative, Passionate and Clear-communicator, I wasn't able to see a strong correspondence, other than to say that practising all 7 of the elements would enhance a designer's imagination, and that if designers aren't passionate or clear communicators, then they will struggle with practising the elements successfully.

One striking omission...Nothing mapped to Robust (healthy and strong in mind and body). While there is much research about how physical exercise contributes to mental health, and how meditation and other 'awareness' techniques help calm and focus the mind, I haven't seen an attribute for mind-body balance on any of the design thinking lists. Granted, I haven't read all of them, but it's worth considering how we can incorporate Corporalità into our design-thinking practice.